A Summary of the Srimad Bhagavata Mahapuranam : 4.4 - Swami Krishnananda.

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Thursday, August  18, 2022. 21:00. 

The Glory of God : 

Chapter-4. The Stories of Siva and Sati, and Rishabhadeva and Bharata -4.

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“When I was engaged in battle with Drona and Karna, I saw some vague being moving about, not touching the ground. It was sometimes visible, sometimes not visible. It had ashes on its body, a serpent around its neck, and a trident in its hand. I could not make out what it was. It was an illusion before me. At the time I could not speak about this because I was engaged in war, but I remember this incident now and want to ask you what it was that I was seeing there,” said Arjuna

Sri Krishna said, “You are a blessed man to have that vision. It was Bhagavan Sankara himself, invisibly moving in the battlefield to help you. Otherwise, even with all your archery, with all your might and main, with all your knowledge and power, do you believe that you can face people like Bhishma, Drona and Karna? They are all a hundred times stronger than you. Siva, in his compassion, came uninvited to bless you because of your goodness. He did not engage in battle, and did not come to wage war with the Kurus, but his very presence was enough to paralyse the strength of all the Kurus. The odour emanating from his body was enough to cow down everybody and make them lose all their strength. Such is the glory of Siva, the great Sankara Bhagavan; and you had his darshan. Blessed you are, Arjuna! He is Ashutosh—immediately pleased. Ask, and it is given immediately. You did not call him, but he knew that you required help. Unsolicited, the great master, the great god, came to you. This is Tripurari, Mahadeva, Sankara, Rudra, Siva. He was in the air, moving about without touching the ground. His blessing is upon you.”

Here we have the central issue, practically, of the Fourth Skandha of the Srimad Bhagavata—among many other things, into which we will not enter here due to paucity of time.

We turn to the Fifth Skandha, which engages itself in the description of cosmic geography, and describes the denizens of the various planes and existences. It is not the geography that we read in schools and colleges, but the cosmic geography of the planes of existence, all which is given in majestic Sanskrit prose. The whole of the Srimad Bhagavata is in poetry; but here the author, Bhagavan Vyasa, turns his attention to majestic Sanskrit prose, which is a beauty in itself. A hard nut to crack is that style of Sanskrit prose found in the Fifth Skandha of the Srimad Bhagavata.

The highlighting katha in this Skandha is the stories of Rishabhadeva and Bharata. Rishabhadeva was a king who abdicated his throne and became an ascetic in the forest. The Jainas consider Rishabhadeva as their first Tirthankara because he lived like an utter renunciate who would not even wear clothes, which is the description of a Tirthankara in Jain literature. Digambara was the behaviour of this Rishabhadeva. Such was his austerity, such was the tejas that emanated from his person, such was the energy that was in his personality, that it is said that wherever he eased himself, that part of the earth would become gold. Wherever he went, people would run after him to find gold, and so he would hide himself. The fragrance of jasmine would emanate from his body, extending to distances of several miles, and wherever people smelled jasmine, they felt that Rishabhadeva was somewhere nearby. Such was his austerity, his yoga, his concentration on God Almighty, his meditation on the Supreme Bhagavan.

To be continued ....

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